Articles such as batteries, crayons, pencils, beverage containers, film canisters, and the like, are typically right-circular, cylindrical and elongated in configuration. After these articles are manufactured using modern, mass production techniques, they are collected or grouped together in a bin, or transported on a conveyor, to another location for further processing. This processing may include: (1) labeling or other application of product name or brand identification upon the articles; (2) counting predetermined package numbers, or entire production numbers, of the articles; and, (3) packaging or containerizing the articles. For this purpose, it is desirable to provide some means for physically segregating, individual ones of the articles from the grouped production articles, so that they may individually be further processed, in the required manner.
Manual techniques for such segregation have been replaced by automated devices, capable of operating at relatively high speeds in unattended fashion. For example, the inventor herein is aware that a rotary wheel, having pockets on its periphery, including permanent magnets therein, has been proposed to singulate cylindrical metal containers. Specific details of the proposed construction are not known, but it is believed that such a device would be ineffective to singulate non-metallic containers, made of plastic or glass material, and would further require an active extractor to remove articles from the grip of the magnets within the pockets.
The inventor herein is also aware that a device for singulating articles such as crayons has been proposed, in which a grouping bin having a discharge throat sized and configured to pass a single crayon is employed. Owing to the physical limitations imposed by this singulation technique, it is believed that this device cannot run at the desired high speeds, and may further be susceptible to jamming.